Help celebrate our students’ hard work by joining the College of Design community for final reviews, exhibitions, and showcases featuring work from across our design disciplines.
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a physical heart defect that begins in the womb, impacting around 40,000 children born in the U.S. each year. Seeking to improve education for diagnosed children and their families, Drs. Amr El-Bokl and Gurumurthy Hiremath (Department of Pediatrics, UMN medical school), partnered with the Product Design program, where they collaborated with undergraduate student Levi Skelton (Product Design) and Dr. Carlye Lauff (Assistant Professor, Product Design) to create a product for teaching children about CHD and easing parental stress.
The University of Minnesota’s College of Design is pleased to announce that internationally acclaimed architect, Frank Owen Gehry, CC, FAIA, will be the inaugural speaker for the new Kusske Lecture & Dialogue Series on Tuesday, November 16.
The concept that science can and should be accessible to all is the grounding principle behind the Science Communication Lab at the University of Minnesota. Founded to provide interdisciplinary internship opportunities, the lab has consistently attracted College of Design undergraduate students interested in creating stories or media that make complex research and scientific topics accessible to the general public.
Innovation starts with new challenges and fresh perspectives, a concept well known to both the Product Design program and Andersen Corporation. This notion formed the basis of their spring 2021 collaboration when graduating product design seniors worked directly with Andersen Windows and Doors products and professionals to develop solutions for “bringing the outdoors in” as part of their capstone projects.
What started as a part-time job for Juan Andrés Rujana (BS ‘20, Product Design) turned into an opportunity to grow, experiment, and make an impact supporting refugees as Epimonía’s design director. Juan Rujana talks about his work with Epimonía, a refugee-founded fashion label, and how his experiences in the Product Design program have impacted his career thus far in our latest alumni spotlight.
Searching for jobs and making early career decisions can be tough to navigate on your own. For 28 years, College of Design juniors, seniors, and graduate students have been matched with mentors in their field of study to help bridge the gap between academia and industry through the college’s award-winning mentorship program.
Driven by the acute need for N95 masks in hospitals, faculty from the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, College of Science of Engineering, and medical school worked together to create two face mask designs that could be assembled using available materials.
The scarcity of N95 masks has occupied headlines and the minds of the public since the outbreak of COVID-19—hoarders of the masks have been busted, stockpiles have been donated, and several alternatives have been developed.
Ten years since it launched and one name change later, Toy Product Design (now Product Innovation Lab or iLab) remains one of product design's most popular courses.
